Bad Cinderella
by queertostay
Summary: Will's a hot mess, but he's sassy and fun. Unfortunately that won't mean much when he's trapped in a weird Cinderella retelling with robotic people and an insufficient supply of tropical starbursts, ruled by a creepy girl with blurry hands. Now he's got to escape, but a swoon worthy prince is making that a bit tricky. Can Will make it back home? Is Golf even a sport?


Look, I get that this sounds made up.

And I swear to God I'm not high on mushrooms. If I was high on mushrooms, you'd know. I mean, I'd be, like, eating someone's arm or trying to have sex with a piano, like it'd be real weird stuff not like "Haha, Will did mushrooms and now he's _looking at colorful pictures of space and expressing his feelings with crayons_," like, bitch, I already do that stuff; get over yourself.

Also, shoutout to Robin's Egg Blue. You see me the way only Backstreet Boys ever did.

Anyway, I'm telling the truth.

But, like, it wasn't even that glamorous. Like, it was in the campus library, _in the nonfiction section_. Who the hell even goes to the nonfiction section? Psychopaths? People who think golf is a sport? Okay, and me, fair, as I literally just said I was there. But also to be fair, I was sort of stalking my sort of ex.

Which kind of makes me sound like a psychopath now that I'm saying it out loud.

Anyway, our library isn't even a cool library where it's always thundering outside and there's turrets and the librarian is a bunch of goblins in a dress wearing a mask made from a paper plate. Like, this is Illinois, and our library looks like it's still pro-segregation. Weird white columns, brick walls, the inside smells like a pro shop, I mean, just the worst. There's a snack machine by the café that has _no tropical starbursts_, like what even. Just trash.

I mean, what's one turret going to hurt? They could have built one turret and put, like, some really old books in there, you know the ones that use phrases like "a woman's place" and "cellular phones" and "homosexual agenda," and you're just reading them thinking "God, this is so crazy" while you're stuffing your face with tropical starbursts, _which the vending machine doesn't have anymore_.

Also, to be fair, I didn't go to the library to stalk Alex - my sort-of ex, whatever. I went to check out Anna Karenina because it's about adultery, but - as it turns out - not in a fun way. In a "Wah, I'm sad because all my lame friends don't want to wave fans with me anymore!" way; I mean, girl, who even has time for that. Everyone's always like "But the symbolism!" and "It's the greatest novel ever!" and "Why am I still single?"

Yeah, calm down Harold Bloom.

And also, what's the point of adultery if Edith Head isn't designing your dresses and everyone isn't talking in a Transatlantic accent?

So, I'm in the Literature section like a decent human being, flipping through Anna Karenina thinking "Kitty should dump Levin for an actual sack of grain. God, Levin is the worst," when I hear tittering coming from the side. I slowly lean back, and it's Alex and his new girlfriend, Rebecca, who Mom says looks like she's eighty, because she has fair skin and freckles.

Rebecca is nice, but not in a good way. Nice in a "what-else-is-there?" way.

Nice in a "I-would-make-such-a-submissive-wife" kind of way, which is totally what Alex wants. Or what his parents want for him.

But it doesn't matter, because whatever Alex and I were - which was some version of weird friends - is over and done and dead now.

But damn, he's still attractive, with his fluffy blonde hair, those bright eyes, and his simple, sweet smile coyly turning up on one side now but in a goofy way. And he still just seems so nice. But I have to remind myself that he's nice - not kind, nice. I want kind now.

And it's not like we dated.

I mean, Mom says we were in love.

But I don't know. He talked about girls a lot. Ugh, but there was that one time.

Man, he is super weird. And attractive.

Anyway, Alex is a whole thing. We'll talk about it later. And later after that. And then later after that. You get it.

So, I'm a quarter reading Anna Karenina, a quarter making up fanfiction in my mind about Kitty and an actual sack of grain, and half scrutinizing Alex and Rebecca's threadbare conversation for signs of discontent when I hear them start to move away from me. Towards the nonfiction section.

Which is the point where I told myself "You're really into books about Russia now! Why don't you scour _every nonfiction book in existence for one about Russia?_" To which I thought "Okay, sounds legit!"

My therapist tells me I'm very emotionally stable. Or at least that's what I assume she tells me. I mostly talk about Bette Davis films in our sessions and then think about what would happen if I got sucked into a black hole while she's talking.

The whole facebook-stalking-minus-the-facebook takes longer than I was hoping for, and I'm starting to regret not going out with Madeline to the secret Halloween party tonight. Although not really, because I'm not much of a drinker - mental instability and alcohol are not the greatest combination, and yes, I lied about the therapist. Alex and Rebecca are like _really_ basic together. Like "I got an A minus on my calculus exam and then my soy latte was too cold! Wah!" And "Well, did you pray about it? The universe wants you to have a warm soy latte." And "Tee-hee, you always know what to say." It feels like someone is taking a cheese grater to my brain.

So as my mind is atrophying from their basic-ass conversation and I'm trying to transmit the last remnants of my consciousness into the book in front of me, titled "Raising Your Down-Syndrome Child," I get poked.

So, of course, like an idiot who's horrible at stalking, I gasp like a whale.

And it's this girl.

But I mean, again: Halloween, night, Friday, creeping on Alex and am slightly worried about being seen, vampires-are-probably-real-just-kidding-or-am-I. Already seems like a slasher film set-up.

She was so short, too! Almost like a middle school girl, but you could tell she wasn't. And she had that big hood over her mess of hair, and she was clutching the book.

So, I whispered the first thing that came to mind: "Sorry!"

I mean, let's get real, knowing me, I'd probably done something wrong. Like breathed the wrong way or committed a murder while I was unconscious. The usual.

So, her head kind of tilts up at me, and I sort of register that I can't see her face? But not totally register, just like a "I can't tell who this person is, cause she has crazy-hair, but also does she have a face? I mean, probably, right?" kind of register.

And then, she doesn't say anything.

She just looks at me.

Sort of.

Somehow I can tell she is, which is probably another reason why I didn't register that I couldn't actually see her eyes. Because I thought I felt them.

And then I notice her hands sort of blur and glow, like moonlight reflected off of water.

To which I think "Dang, that is some crazy makeup going on there. She's dedicated!"

So she just continues to look at me.

And I think through my glossary of excellent phrases to navigate a super awkward situation, which features such favorites as "Hi!" and "Can I help you?" All of these feel too weird, even for me.

So I settle for the especially irrelevant "Uh huh!" and continue standing there, feeling even more dumb.

She lifts the tome up at me.

And yes, it was a tome. I may not be an over-achieving nerd, but I'm still a nerd. Or just an odd-ball? The point is I've played Dungeons and Dragons before, except I wanted it all to be about glamorous people committing adultery and unrequited love, and suffice it to say, my roommate never asked me to join him and his friends again.

Anyway, back to the Tome. It's beautiful - Arabic looking script but not Arabic, black leather straps, intricate etchings of flowers and trees and people, tiny jewel-like stones, vivid colors like turquoise and rose-pink.

"Oooo," I say, leaning closer to it despite my best judgment. I realize this and lean back abruptly.

She keeps staring at me.

"I don't know where that book belongs," I say, thinking she's somehow mistaken a man wearing the stylish combination of sweats and sunglasses as the school librarian. Maybe she thinks this is a costume? "It's very pretty, though," I add.

I realize Alex and Rebecca are probably staring at me from the opposite direction, especially now that I've spoken.

Ugh, ugh, ugh, this is the worst. The creeper has been out-creeped.

The girl nods at me.

I slowly exhale. So she did think I was the school librarian, and she gets what I'm saying. Phew. Now I can go home and drill nails into my skull for acting so incredibly stupid in stalking Alex.

She presses the book against her chest.

I wait, expecting her to move.

She doesn't.

"Cool hands!" I whisper, nodding. God, I'm such a weirdo. But to be fair, she does have cool hands.

Somehow, I can sense her smiling. Or sort of smiling?

"Well…" I say. I can't think of a nice way to ask her to move. Maybe I should just risk it and turn around towards Alex and Rebecca, even if they are staring at me like the crazy train I am.

"Do you want to go to a land where the impossible becomes possible?" she says. There's something weird about her voice, almost as if it's the voice of many, many people but still at the volume and control of one.

"What?" I ask.

She repeats in an identical fashion, "Do you want to go to a land where the impossible becomes possible?"

I nod, trying to keep my facial expression contained. Did she just discover fantasy or something? This is super weird. I can feel my eyes getting wide the way they do when I'm nervous.

"Okay," I reply.

Maybe she just wants to show me the book?

I'll take a peak and then definitely leave.

And that's when it all went down.


End file.
